the artist, at least, determined it should go no further. he put on his hat, and went to find yossel mandelstein. but yossel was not to be found so easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with each false scent. yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to heaven, in the beth hamedrash, where he was shaking himself studiously over a babylonian folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths and greybeards equally careless of the demands of life. the dusky home of holy learning seemed an awkward place in which to broach the subject of love. in a whisper he besought the oscillating student to come outside. yossel started up in agitation.

'ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with what seemed a lover's inaccuracy. 'i will come and pray at once.'

'no, no, she is not dying,' said schneemann hastily, adding in a grim murmur, 'unless of love.'

'oh, then, it is not about your grandmother?'

'no—that is to say, yes.' it seemed more difficult than ever to plunge into the delicate subject. to refer plumply to the courtship would, especially if it [322]were not true, compromise his grandmother and, incidentally, her family. yet, on the other hand, he longed to know what lay behind all this philandering, which in any case had been compromising her, and he felt it his duty as his grandmother's protector and the representative of the family to ask yossel straight out whether his intentions were honourable.

he remembered scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors were tackled by champions of convention—scenes in which they were even bought off and started in new lands. would not yossel go to a new land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? he led the way without.

'you have lived here all your life, yossel, have you not?' he said, when they were in the village street.

'where else shall a man live?' answered yossel.

'but have you never had any curiosity to see other parts? would you not like to go and see vienna?'

a little gleam passed over yossel's dingy face. 'no, not vienna—it is an unholy place—but prague! prague where there is a great rabbi and the old, old underground synagogue that god has preserved throughout the generations.'

'well, why not go and see it?' suggested the artist.

yossel stared. 'is it for that you tore me away from my talmud?'

'n—no, not exactly for that,' stammered schneemann. 'only seeing you glued to it gave me the idea what a pity it was that you should not travel and sit at the feet of great rabbis?'

'but how shall i travel to them? my crutches cannot walk so far as prague.'

[323]'oh, i'd lend you the money to ride,' said the artist lightly.

'but i could never repay it.'

'you can repay me in heaven. you can give me a little bit of your gan iden' (paradise).

yossel shook his head. 'and after i had the fare, how should i live? here i make a few gulden by writing letters for people to their relatives in america; in prague everybody is very learned; they don't need a scribe. besides, if i cannot die in palestine i might as well die where i was born.'

'but why can't you die in palestine?' cried the artist with a new burst of hope. 'you shall die in palestine, i promise you.'

the gleam in yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'i shall die in palestine?' he asked ecstatically.

'as sure as i live! i will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.'

for a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on yossel's face, then a cloud began to pass across it.

'but how can i take your money? i am not a schnorrer.'

schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. the more so as yossel's eagerness to go and die in palestine seemed to show that there was no reason for packing him off. however, he told himself that one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy.

'there is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why i should buy to myself the [324]mitzvah (good deed) of sending you to jerusalem. you see, i have so few good deeds to my credit.'

'so i have heard,' replied yossel placidly. 'a very wicked life it is said you lead at rome.'

'most true,' said the artist cheerfully.

'it is said also that you break the second commandment by making representations of things that are on sea and land.'

'i would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist.

'your grandmother does not understand. she thinks you paint houses—which is not forbidden. but i don't undeceive her—it would pain her too much.' the lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's alarm.

'when will you be ready to start?' he said.

yossel pondered. 'but to die in palestine one must live in palestine,' he said. 'i cannot be certain that god would take my soul the moment i set foot on the holy soil.'

the artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to guarantee that yossel should live in palestine, especially if he were an unconscionably long time a-dying. a happy thought came to him. 'but there is the chalukah,' he reminded yossel.

'but that is charity.'

'no—it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. it is just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from all the world over. the prayers and studies of our old men in jerusalem are a redemption to all israel. and yours would be to me in particular.'

'true, true,' said yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, i have always heard.'

[325]'then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. but yossel replied simply:

'may the blessings of the eternal be upon you for ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.'

the artist was moved. surely, he thought, struggling between tears and laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the head of the family. not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.